1st February 2022
Here in Spain, everyone who loves and cares for dogs feels a shiver up their spine as the date approaches. Because it isn't just the day we celebrate World Galgo Day. It's also the day that marks the end of the hunting season here in Spain. And that means torture, abandonment, cruelty and various forms of painful death for these noble dogs.
The date for World Galgo Day wasn't chosen accidentally. It was chosen deliberately to celebrate them while also drawing attention to their mistreatment, to the horrible lives they live and the unspeakable ways they die at the hands of their so-called masters. And not simply Galgos, but also Podencos and all hunting and working dogs, such as
It is estimated that over 100,000 Galgos and Podencos and other hunting dogs are cruelly killed in Spain every year. Why so many? Why this 'cull' every year? It's because they are mostly used for only one season and then discarded. Even the 'good' ones are discarded, because there is no sterilisation or castration, so there is a never ending stream of new dogs to take their place. It's an exceptional dog that doesn't meet it's fate, one way or the other, at the end of the season.
If a dog has hunted well, it may be treated to a 'kinder' death, which is to say that if hung from a tree it will be hung high up so that death comes quickly. One who has displeased will be hung with its feet barely touching the floor, so death will come only after a painful struggle.
It is, I believe, almost impossible for any 'normal' person to understand the mindset of someone who is capable of such acts. For death by hanging is only one way. Galgos and Podencos have been thrown down wells, flung into rivers, burned to death, doused with acid, shot, and thrown out of cars on busy motorways. If 'simply' abandoned, they may have been tortured or beaten first. Even before their end, when they are still believed to have some use, they are badly neglected, starved, crammed into outhouses and cages with no light, no water, and absolutely no human kindness.
It was hoped that with the advent of the new Spanish laws, recognising at long last that animals are sentient beings, the lives of these gorgeous creatures would improve. Not a bit of it. The legislators, some of them hunters themselves, are subservient to the powerful hunting lobbies and so have excluded hunting and working dogs from the protection of the law. These include not simply Galgos and Podencos, but also Beagles, Breton Espanols, Bodegueros and other working dogs.
Below are links to the petition to get hunting and working dogs included in the legislation that will recognise them as sentient beings and thus protected by law. And also to a very detailed article from National Geographic about Galgos.
I hope in future posts to tell the rescue stories of some of 'our' wonderful Galgos and Podencos.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/spanish-galgo-hunting-dog-killing-welfare
